Two Oregon prosecutors say they are moving forward with criminal cases against people accused of selling medical marijuana at retail outlets, despite passage of a bill July 6 allowing such establishments to exist with state blessing.

"This conduct was against the law at the time people committed the crime," said Bracken McKey, a senior deputy district attorney in Washington County. "We are expected to hold people accountable."

House Bill 3460, which Gov. John Kitzhaber is expected to sign, creates a legal marketplace for medical marijuana, where Oregon's estimated 56,000 patients can walk into a shop with money and walk out with cannabis. The Human Collective, a Tigard collective raided last year by Washington County authorities, served as a model for HB 3460.

In addition to Washington and Malheur counties, Jackson and Lane county law enforcement has raided medical marijuana retailers and arrested their operators. Lane and Jackson county prosecutors did not return emails or phone calls seeking comment.

McKey said Washington County took into account eventual passage of dispensary legislation when deciding the level of charges filed against the Human Collective's operators in 2012. He said the district attorney's office will continue prosecuting Don Morse and Sarah Bennett, who are accused of manufacturing, possessing and distributing marijuana. Bennett faces additional charges of possession of psilocybin mushrooms, child endangerment and child neglect; authorities say her child was in the home while drugs were present.

Protecting cases like the ones pending in Washington County spurred the Oregon District Attorneys Association to push for a last-minute change to the bill. The law originally included a provision that potentially protected existing establishments if they faced prosecution before the state begins issuing registry cards, which is expected to begin in 2014.

He said the operation wouldn't have fallen under the protection of HB 3460 even it it had been in effect at the time. Under the bill, medical marijuana retailers must be separate from grow sites, a requirement that Norris said the 45th Parallel didn't meet.

Charges are pending against eight defendants in that case. Ten others pleaded guilty to possession or distribution of marijuana, and in some cases both.

A pending case in Jackson County involves a high-profile advocate of the state's medical marijuana program, Lori Duckworth. Duckworth and others, including her husband, are accused of selling marijuana out of a downtown Medford storefront.

Margie Paris, a law professor at the University of Oregon School of Law, said prosecutors are on legally solid ground in moving ahead with dispensary cases. But she said the passage of HB 3460 potentially complicates their work.

"Maybe the most profound problem is, this is a signal from the Oregon community that we don't want prosecutorial resources expended in this way," Paris said, "or we don't want people engaging in these retail sales to be punished, to be criminalized."

Paris said prosecutors may encounter resistance from jurors. "If the defendant chooses to go to trial, can you get a jury to convict?"

Morse, the Human Collective operator facing charges in Washington County, attended the hearings and work sessions on HB 3460. He said the bill formalizes an industry that until now operated under its own rules.

"There are so many places where everything is done on a wink and a handshake," he said.

He added: "Now there is a clear case of who is in the right and who is the in wrong."